


The Harder the Fall

by Chryselis



Category: Aldnoah.Zero (Anime)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, POV Alternating, Pre-Canon, don't tell me I didn't warn you, graphic depictions of sexual abuse, no one is happy here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-07-27 04:31:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7603477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chryselis/pseuds/Chryselis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are times when Cruhteo feels like a man possessed.</p>
<p>By what, he isn't quite sure. When the urge takes him over, everything he thinks he knows about himself feels uncertain. But sometimes, a moment of lucidity emerges from the twisted heat constricting him, highlighting the bizarre situation he has worked himself into.</p>
<p>He doesn't know who he is anymore, and Slaine Troyard is the one who stole that certainty away from him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This fic is an exploration of a highly abusive relationship between Cruhteo and Slaine and it'll only get more detailed from here. Like it says in the tags, don't tell me I didn't warn you.

There are times when Cruhteo feels like a man possessed.

By what, he isn't quite sure. When the urge takes him over, everything he thinks he knows about himself feels uncertain. But sometimes, a moment of lucidity emerges from the twisted heat constricting him, highlighting the bizarre situation he has worked himself into.

He can't even remember how it started anymore.

Was it the first time those glassy azure eyes looked up to him in fear, still sparkling with glints of hope? He had pitied their ignorance, all while the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. The fear was mutual. The hope less so. He couldn't be expected to look after a Terran, no matter how loyal his father may have been.

Maybe it was when he noticed the boy had to be fitted for a larger uniform, suddenly awkward and lithe limbs carrying him away from childhood? He had made note of how slim and fragile the pale wrists peeking out from his sleeves had looked, before he was caught staring and sleeves were readjusted. Brows furrowed, although the reasons why stood worlds apart.

He had sought to create distance, and struggled with the anxious glances and stuttered responses to his increased coldness. The more he pulled and pushed the boundaries of their relationship with blunt words and harsh actions, the more the boy submitted, pliant, willing, desperate for scraps of warmth.

Those moments irritated him, had plagued his mind until one day the sight of barely parted lips, stained on the back of his eyelids, forced him to the bottle.

When he drinks, Cruhteo sinks into the large red chair in the corner of his office. There's a small ornate table next to it, offering up his favourite poison and a crystal glass in sacrifice. Without thinking, he lazily pours, sets back the bottle, and swigs down the liquid in one go. Whenever thoughts resurface, he pours, drowning them out. The warm buzz of alcohol brings him comfort in the cold fortress he's built himself, far away from young boys who haven't yet faced the reality of adulthood. It helps him feel safe, alone. It helps beckon sleep before the idea of ghostly white fingers pulls pleadingly at the fabric of his cravat. It helps his entire body stay warm, so that he doesn't have to feel the ice running through his veins when he wraps a hand around himself, stiff and ridden with guilt.

Over the weeks, it becomes a habit that other people notice. He shoots threatening glares at subordinates who witness him emerging after long bouts locked in his office, standing not quite straight, hair not quite as slick. His intensity is amplified by how furtively they all seem to turn away, and he notices some tense as he props himself up on his cane, tap-tap of his arrhythmic steps shooting out a resounding warning.

They wouldn't understand, that he's doing all he can. That this is the best solution, he thinks.

 

As long as he can keep himself under control, he knocks back glass after glass.

 

Then comes a time when the pattern breaks, where circumstances push you to your limit.

 

The bottle on his side table is empty. As is the cabinet. It shouldn't be, and hasn't been, for well over two months now. A vein in his neck pulses, he grabs the empty bottle in anger, ready to smash it against something, anything -

A knock on the door.

"About time," he mutters to himself. He had been explicit in his request that the stock be replenished discreetly, away from prying eyes, and while he was away from the office. He will probably be angry in the morning, but right now... He exhales, focusing on the key code for the door's lock.

The seal decompresses and the swish of displaced air reveals a timid looking figure, unsure of how to handle the delivery it's carrying. Blonde bangs hang over his long lashed-eyes as he looks up to Cruhteo, like a child caught red handed, knowing they aren't supposed to meet like this.

Of course, it dawns on him. He did this to himself. To keep him away he had made very clear that Slaine should be assigned or delegated any menial task available. Work the Terran harder to make him prove his loyalty. The irony is palpable, that he should stand here, now, ready to hand him the bitter tasting medicine. Was the soldier who delegated this task making fun of him? Did they know? No, it's impossible. There are no signs. He knows they're all afraid, afraid of the day when he might drink a little too much and his cane might slip a little more readily than usual. Feelings in his gut boil at the thought.

 

They should know their place.

 

Like Slaine does.

 

Eager, obedient Slaine.

 

Smaller hands reach out, wordlessly, face cast down. He is anxious, Cruhteo notes, aware that his timing is inconvenient. The older man tenses, himself feeling caught in the act, and relieves him of the delivery.

"I'm sorry," blurts out Slaine, hanging even lower now, bent into a bow, "I couldn't come earlier, what with the other tasks you assigned me today-"

Cruhteo cuts him off by raising his hand. Not now, he thinks, not today. If anything, never. Slaine lingers in the doorway waiting to be dismissed, while Cruhteo saunters to the red chair, throne of his worst moments, and slumps after placing the new bottle on the table.

Slaine shifts his weight from one foot to the other, hands contorting behind his back.

"Lord Cruhteo, should I leave?" He asks gingerly, having had to step into the office when the door closed automatically.

Cruhteo doesn't even hear himself as he breathes out "stay".

 

It's already too late. It's only alcohol. And he looks so eager, Cruhteo knows that all he wants is an allusion to familiarity. Kind, lonely Slaine, always looking up to him in vain hope that Cruhteo may decide to be the father figure he needs him to be. The older man laughs and looks up, only to see Slaine standing closer to him, looking concerned.

Oh, the naivety makes him ache.

"I'm tired," he gestures to the boy, glass tilted in his loosened grip, "come here and pour me a glass."

Slaine's hands are shaking as he stares, bewildered by the simple command. Of course. He doesn't know how to open the bottle.

"Leftmost cabinet," Cruhteo drawls, "there should be a bottle opener in the drawer."

He watches carefully as the slender frame makes its way around his office, and realises it's been a while since he last saw Slaine outside of an official capacity. He has grown into his new uniform, filling it out ever so slightly. It catches on his hips.

While Slaine is fiddling with the bottle, features softened, unsuspectingly happy to be included in a moment he can't even begin to understand, Cruhteo can't help but bait him with what he came for:

"You've been working well lately, for a Terran."

Distracted by the sudden kindness, Slaine pulls a little too hard on the cork he was struggling to unscrew and spills wine down his uniform. In a flash, Cruhteo's hand is on his wrist, tilting it straight so the wine keeps from spilling more. Slaine is clearly in shock, shivering both at the touch and at his mistake, pre-emptively cowering from a strike he assumes will follow. Their eyes meet and the boy flinches, before letting his eyes widen again, looking right at the man before him. Cruhteo can see his own reflection in tantalising blue, and his thoughts in that moment make him feel sick.

He doesn't know who he is anymore, and Slaine Troyard is the one who stole that certainty away from him.

Amidst the blur of long shifts, weariness, and the promise of alcohol to soothe his aching head, bubbles a distorted idea, a challenge to the lonely moments that led up to this one. He lets go of Slaine's wrist, and rather than reprimand him he offers a simple command:

"Strip."

 

 

***

 

There are times when Slaine thinks he might have died and gone to hell.

After all, he can't move his body anymore. He is losing his mind, a puppet whose limbs arch and jerk to the touch of the cruellest master. There's no more strength to cry, even though the tears sometimes flow unnoticed. All he has is reckless abandon to sick pleasure, to feel something, anything.

He remembers exactly how it started.

Why has the moment seared his mind so clearly? It would be much easier to forget the awful lie, the promise of affection now burning, venom in his veins blooming hot at the sound of his own name. He had taken a larger, safer, sturdy hand in his own and held tight, until the sweetness was banished by a command, directing his innocence to the very thing that would pierce it over and over until there was nothing left.

It's his own fault.

Maybe if he hadn't deluded himself into thinking that there must have been a reason Princess Asseylum had entrusted him to Lord Cruhteo. Why would she have willingly let him climb into the jaws of a monster?

Or was it because he missed his father so, that he had blindly clung onto the hope that the closest he now had to a replacement would one day look at him and see more than a piece of filth on the boots of the Versian army?

It definitely is his own fault.

In the split second he had looked into Cruhteo's eyes in fear and stupidly, stupidly allowed himself to relax when the fingers wrapped around his wrist felt like comfort more than punishment, he saw something change in the man before him.

He wishes now it had been a blow from the cane, an insult - not that those hadn't followed - but anything would've been better than living like this.

A tantalising inch away from death, life never merciful, unrelenting.

Gnarled hands tighten around his hips as a beast buries himself in him, frenzied, panting and sweating heavily. It pushes hard, nothing ever hard enough, and the desk Slaine is bent over shakes, sending something or other flying off it. Slaine wants to let himself get knocked out against the edge of the desk, he wants to share the numbness the towering figure keeps from him because surely, he must be dead inside to keep on living this way.

Slaine isn't, not just yet, and the dread that swells up inside him before every thrust and lick tells him that something is about to break.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The statement is gentle, genuine in its surprise.
> 
> "You're hard," Cruhteo says, and the tip of his cane presses inquisitively upwards between Slaine's shivering thighs.
> 
> ***
> 
> Maybe, Slaine thinks, this is happening because of who, and how, I am.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE READ THIS WARNING:
> 
> This chapter depicts EXTREMELY GRAPHIC SEXUAL ABUSE and the resulting emotional reactions, both from POV of abuser and abused. Please don't read it if you're not equipped to deal with emotionally challenging content.
> 
> I'm writing this because while watching AZ, I felt Cruhteo fit the perfect profile of an abuser and I (sadly) couldn't help but imagine the things he could justify doing to Slaine given the right "excuse", which is what abusers often believe. I also feel that Slaine's character is complex, but not pushed enough in the show given the amount of on-screen torture he receives from Cruhteo. This is an attempt at filling in the gaps while also pushing the conception of troubled characters in a war setting.
> 
> It is in no way my intent to cheapen the experiences of IRL survivors of trauma, and if anything I aim to depict traumatic events in a way that non-victims can begin to understand, if only just a little. I hope the way I present the characters in this makes you think. Because of this, I'm also really curious as to what your reaction is as a reader, so please do comment to discuss it - although I understand that not everyone wants to engage openly with this type of material.

Slaine stands there, bottle of wine still in hand, stain spreading across the front of his uniform. Cruhteo leans forward to take it off him and casually pours himself a glass, swirling the liquid around impatiently.

The silence makes his brow twitch and his fingers restless. 

"Did you not hear me Slaine? Strip." 

Although the mood had been imperative, his use of the word is a suggestion. It isn't an order, he tells himself, it's a way to test the limits of the Terran's loyalty. Of his naivety. Of his, or Cruhteo's own, stupidity. 

But he knows he didn't say:

"Remove your jacket immediately, then take it to be cleaned." 

Nor did he remark:

"Take it off now before the wine stains your shirt too." 

He gave one word, open ended, up to interpretation. Cruhteo sees the boy thinking, hears the options clattering as each is reduced to impossibility, shattering as they hit against the circumstances that are his new reality:

 

"Strip," says the man who took you in after your father died, who was supposed to care for and look after you.

"Strip," says the count, the higher ranked soldier in an army base whose authority is near total.

"Strip," says the drunkard, the grown man to whom you've been delivering bottles of wine while the taste of it has never even touched your own lips.

"Strip," says the degenerate, who borrows, uses your likeness in his thoughts for pleasure while his wife raises his children on a planet far away.

 

Cruhteo knows this. Yet, the uncertainty hanging in the air fills him with a thrill, so much so that he could almost -

 

"Strip," he repeats once more, tone flat and head lulling against the chair's velvety fabric, tilted back enough to look down on the boy standing before him. The glass finds its way to his lips now, habit hardwired, need immediately soothed by the faintly bitter warmth sliding into him, around him, filling him with exhilaration. 

Slaine is shaking now, unknowingly feeding the possibility growing in Cruhteo's mind by showing no sign of resistance to banish it. Another sip, and the warmth boils, searing into anger. What power of denial Slaine Troyard could've had to save himself begins to pale against the towering height of an ego, fuelled by eager alcohol, as Cruhteo leans forward, fingers tensing and curling into the armrest of his chair. In that moment, a mind is made up, and the small wavering figure shifts nervously, hands fumbling over buttons until the jacket opens to reveal a burgundy stained shirt underneath. 

The boy's lips part, a question shy of the tip of his tongue. Cruhteo sits back and he feels the corner of his mouth twitch. Another sip. Slaine's eyes dart to the bottle of wine, and the man takes another sip. Glass? He's not paying attention. Useless Terran, pathetic without orders to guide him. Spineless, cowardly, hesitant - the count downs another glass he filled without realising and leans forward once more. 

"You took too long and the shirt is stained now too. Remove it." 

Cruhteo wonders if he's making this difficult, although the wine tells him otherwise. Here, he is king. After all, if war has taught him one thing, it's that there is no right or wrong, only authority. Only the satisfying conviction that your side is righteous, and he is, Cruhteo is a righteous man who fights for the freedom and the survival of his people, of those chosen to wield a power far greater than any the Terrans can muster. Terrans like this boy, scum who kill and deny the obvious supremacy of the Vers empire, squirming on the blue planet below, bugs, ready to be crushed. Dirty. Subhuman. Nothing. 

To win this war, Vers must be indomitable. Unflinching, merciless, supreme. Cruhteo serves only Vers and the emperor's will is word therefore the Terran cannot be seen to disobey. He cannot be seen refusing to submit. 

A muffled, pained sound pulls him away from his thoughts, revealing that he has struck the Terran with his cane. Likely after he let the jacket and shirt fall to the ground. 

Of course, there is only one way for the servant to truly realise his place. Cruhteo's glance takes in the wide, horror-stricken eyes, the pale, naked chest, and he closes the gap with his cane once more, this time without any force behind it. The end of the cane trails, following the obvious course of action, leading down a delicate torso and aiming for the crook between two ever so slightly bowed legs, only to hit an obstacle covered by taught, strained fabric. The absurdity of the evidence pulls Cruhteo into a welcoming reality, mouth curving upwards, brow incredulous, exalted even. Never had his fantasies been so daring as to imagine anything other than his own desire. That the Terran... No, Slaine, could awaken to what Cruhteo so desperately tried to dream away. 

The statement is gentle, genuine in its surprise. 

"You're hard," Cruhteo says, and the tip of his cane presses inquisitively upwards between Slaine's shivering thighs.

 

***

 

In the moment Cruhteo issues the order to strip, everything escapes him. Slaine can only feel terror rising, robbing him of his senses, sending his body into a state of high alarm his mind has no control over. 

_Say something_ , he thinks, _anything. Ask why. Suggest that you should head out and tend to your uniform at once. Apologise. There must be something, anything that he won't react angrily to. Something to soften the blow._  

Instead Slaine's hands move despite themselves, latching on to the command to save their body from imminent shutdown. Some form of survival mechanism is telling him to keep his head still and keep moving, to obey, that there is some logic in the man's mind for the actions he's making him perform whose consequences aren't as horrific as Slaine is starting to consider. The count only seems to care about drinking, maybe he is simply aggravated by the spilt alcohol. He's already pouring glass after glass, swallowing his addiction at a speed that must correlate with its severity. 

But despite Slaine's efforts the blow comes, and the man doesn't even seem to realise it. The hit lands, albeit less determined than usual, on Slaine's side, designed to make him buckle. But he doesn't.

  _Don't flinch_ , Slaine thinks. _Take it, don't invite another. That only makes him angrier. Let him make his own mind up and don't give him any more reasons or excuses to make this situation worse._

 

Yet although Slaine's thoughts gallop ahead, his body remains rooted in the moment Lord Cruhteo grabbed his wrist and told him to strip. The time all hope of compassion and comfort was extinguished by the hungry look in his superior's eyes. 

Why had no one ever taught Slaine that screams of true, bone-chilling terror would echo only in the chamber of his mind? Then maybe he would've realised, that he is long lost to fear, alone, isolated where no one can hear him. Where even his body betrays him at the worst moment, when a known instrument of pain is making a target of him, and he wants to shout and cry for someone to help. But who would? And wouldn't the consequences be worse? 

No more reasons or excuses, he had thought. Yet here he stands, his body alien, removed, an autonomous chunk of flesh holding down a mind already long gone, frantic, clawing at the door of the room it's confined in, only to be reminded that it cannot exist alone. It cannot exist outside the vessel, and the vessel is pumping blood through muscles and mechanisms the conscious being does not control or understand. 

He doesn't understand what is happening. The hour, the circumstances, the wine, the stained uniform, the hit from Cruhteo and now the bowed lips resembling a genuine smile, the closest to affection he has seen directed at him since his father died. 

Slaine Troyard doesn't understand why he can't run. Why he can't cry. Why he is glued to the spot as a hard object touches him where no one ever has before and where he himself has only recently hazarded to associate the idea of caresses with pleasure and a release he assumed must be normal. 

"You're hard," offers the count, and he isn't sure what that explanation means but he guesses it's referring to his current condition.

 

Now Slaine wonders.

 

_Is it normal?_

 

_Do other men experience this? Are Versians the same?_

 

Or is he sick? Wrong? Is that why Cruhteo keeps his distance and prods at him like an animal? Is that what he is to the man? An animal? Something to be examined, ordered around, used with no will of its own? Is this why he was left behind, taken away from his home planet? Abandoned? 

Those thoughts anchor his mind back into his body, stomach laden with melting lead leaking out through his eyes, and the sobs rattle his ribcage, hitting the roof of his mouth before he swallows them back down, body convulsing and sounds muted by the last bastion of his teeth sinking into his bottom lip.

 

_Maybe_ , he thinks, _this is happening because of who, and how, I am._

 

***

 

The Terran is crying, muffled sniffs and shakes pulling Cruhteo out of his reverie. Why would his servant react like this now, after such apparent enthusiasm? This irks him, and the corner of his eye and mouth twitch in irritation as he draws back the cane, resting it against the side of his chair. His appetite is unfairly whet, and he will not be teased, so he beckons the boy over and pours another glass of wine, ignoring the wretched thing before him as he sighs deeply. 

_Sacrifices must be made for the greater cause_ , he thinks, _even if such fine wine does not deserve to go to waste._  

Cruhteo's eyes slowly look up from under drooped, drowsy lids, sliding towards Slaine as if the act were a chore. 

"Come here Slaine," the count drawls, his speech already duller, missing the usual authoritarian edge one might expect. Yet the words are heavier in their lack of refinement, betraying the uncertain danger that comes with the influence of alcohol. Cruhteo notes the swift wiping away of tears, the boy already tidying away his emotional outburst, approaching cautiously - reverently, dare he add. Cruhteo breathes in deeply, moved by the sight: untouched, raw pale skin, body so young yet already eager. Obedient, apt for learning. Perfect to mould. Primed for him, ready to be taken, beaten into Vers submission. 

"Closer. You will drink this." 

Cruhteo raises the glass and an impatient eyebrow. Slaine steps in and hovers close, uneven rasping breath timed to the beating of his ragged heart. 

"Open your mouth. Tilt your head back." 

Cruhteo brings the glass to Slaine's lips and slowly tips it so that the wine pours down his throat until the boy chokes and coughs, unaccustomed to the bitter taste and its accompanying warmth. 

"Good. Now clean up what you spilt."

Slaine hastily wipes his chin with the back of his hand, then brings it up to his mouth and licks the traces of wine there, worried questioning eyes set on Cruhteo who follows every movement of the soft, small tongue lapping reluctantly at the unsavoury liquid. They both gulp. Cruhteo smiles, breathing out deeply through his nose as he runs his own tongue over his lips in excitement. Slaine smiles back, and the count reaches for his cane, dragging it nonchalantly along the inside of his servant's leg, then over his crotch, where to his disappointment Slaine's own excitement seems to have subsided. 

But it happened once, and the boy is still here. 

So, he will make it happen again.

 

***

 

_What can I do but smile? If I cry again he'll make me drink more._

 

Slaine does not yet realise that the wine will later become a closer friend of his than any man ever will.

 

The second drink doesn't sting as much, and makes his pain and worry feel just a smidge lighter.

 

_Maybe the wine isn't so bad after all._

 

***

 

Cruhteo's new toy proves to be entertaining indeed, and he wonders why the thought seemed so outlandish to him up until this point. Really, it is more a point of curiosity. Do Terrans feel arousal as Versians do? Is their physiology truly identical? Is this a reaction born out of submission, or lust? 

He cocks his head and rolls the tip of the cane against Slaine's crotch, pleased to see that it takes little effort for the small body to start to shiver and tighten. The Terran's mouth hangs open, pants and cries bleeding into the most alluring moans Cruhteo has ever heard, and he presses the cane harder against his crotch. This is a creature of sin, made to turn man weak through the failings of the flesh. How lucky Slaine is, Cruhteo muses, to experience such treatment at the hand of someone so much more experienced while the sensations are brand new. 

The moments begin to blur together as he reaches the bottom of the bottle, especially once a hand finds its way to the neck of the bottle rather than the curve of the wineglass. At some point along the way he asked Slaine to remove the rest of his clothes it would seem, which is logical. How else could he test the extent of his unwavering obedience, but by probing every inch of his mind and body? Cruhteo may be unforgiving, but he is not without reason. He is a calm, righteous man. 

And calm he remains as he watches the golden end of his cane slide in and out from the quivering figure bent over in front of him, nails digging into the plush rug it's hiding it’s face against. 

Cruhteo remains silent, enraptured by what he perceives as a melodious mixture of pain and pleasure playing to his ears. It reminds him of the sounds he hears when he tries to sleep at night, of kataphrakt maintenance workers power cleaning blood spatters from crushed Terran soldiers off the feet of his Tharsis, of the shouts of men determined to bring their ideology home, of a wife never quite warm, never quite alluring enough to satisfy him. 

The novelty of it is, however, only momentary, and without the distraction of alcohol Cruhteo becomes preoccupied with the heat firing up his own body. He abruptly pulls back his cane and finally rises from his chair, relaxed, confident, and curious to see if his fantasies come anywhere near close to what is about to become reality.

 

***

 

Slaine feels relief wash over him when the count forces him to his knees and stands. Out of the corner of his eye he spots blood on the end of the cane and covers his mouth reflexively to hold down the bile that rises in his throat. But the physical pain pales in comparison to the elated feeling that overcomes him when Cruhteo grabs his hair and forces him level with his crotch. 

For the first time Slaine notices that Cruhteo is also... Hard. That he himself is not the only one afflicted. 

"You did this to me, now you have to take responsibility to rid me of it."

 

_Ah, of course._

 

_I'm disgusting. Filthy. I’m the one who did this._

 

"Open your mouth. Keep your hands off me."

 

_I won't touch you. I can't touch anyone ever again._

 

"I'll teach you how to service a Versian count properly."

 

_Anything, anything to make up for this. For what I've done._

 

_I hate myself._

 

_I want to die._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd also like to raise awareness about the issue of male survivors of rape and the misconception that "getting an erection means you consented to it". See here for some educational reading on the topic: http://freethoughtblogs.com/hetpat/2014/09/11/the-flesh-is-weak-on-the-erection-equals-consent-rape-myth/


End file.
